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Organic or starve: can Cuba's new farming model provide food security?
Once it grew only sugar and was heavy handed with fertilizers and pesticides, now Cuba is in the grip of a small-scale organic farming revolution
In the town of Hershey, 40 miles east of Havana, you can see the past and the future of Cuban farming, side by side.
The abandoned hulk of the Camilo Cienfuegos sugar plant, shut along with 70 other cane refineries in 2002, towers over the town. But in the lush hills and grasslands around Hershey, fields of cassava, corn, beans, and vegetables are a sign that there is life after sugar.
Continue reading...Stephen Hawking gives talk on black holes at Oxford University
Country diary: on the Severn Way with a heron and buzzard for company
Caersws, Powys Afon Hafren meanders to the flood plain, a broad, stately, river in comfortable middle age
Long before the Romans built their two forts at Caersws, the ridge to the west of the town was dominated by the ramparts of Cefn Carnedd. In the low afternoon sunshine the defensive banks that still rise above the hillside woodland were picked out by deep shadows.
The iron-age fortress stands above a kempt farmed landscape drained by the afon Hafren (river Severn) as it meanders across the valley floor. Only a few miles from where it rises, gathering volume from the tributary streams funnelling in from the many side valleys, it has already changed from a lively moorland torrent to a broad, stately, river in comfortable middle age.
Continue reading...Warming waters threaten kelp
“Minister for Adani” is back – and pushing for mega coal mine and new coal generator
Professor Stephen Hawking's PhD viewed two million times
Hit the frog and toad
'Way off the planet': regional businesses use renewables to slash costs
From solar to running generators, some have quit the energy grid and several others are showing interest in ‘defecting’
In the heart of Queensland’s mining belt, a businessman who has grown his enterprise mostly off the back of the coal industry sees the energy sector going only one way.
“I think renewable energy is where the market’s going – what we class as the energy revolution,” says Jason Sharam.
Continue reading...Trump to shrink two national monuments following Zinke's proposal
President will reverse protections established by two Democratic presidents on Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante, sparking fury from environmentalists
Donald Trump is shrinking two national monuments in Utah, accepting the recommendation of interior secretary Ryan Zinke to reverse protections established by two Democratic presidents, a Republican senator said Friday.
Related: National Park Service wants to sharply raise entry fees at most popular parks
Continue reading...Eat less fish to help replenish our fish stocks | Letters
The WWF is absolutely right that our fish stocks are at risk from leaving the common fisheries policy (Call for Brexit monitoring of UK fishing fleet, 27 October). This is because in reality fish stocks all round Europe are precarious and all the (welcome) “recovery” in cod stock means is that there are now very few fish instead of very, very few.
My contribution to the future of fish stocks is to not eat fish until there are marine conservation zones all around the UK and fish stocks are allowed to increase massively.
Continue reading...Farming sector aims to cut antibiotics use to help tackle human resistance
Taskforce from UK’s pig, dairy and poultry farming sectors will aim to bring down use seen as major cause of increasing antibiotic resistance
Farming organisations have set new targets to reduce the use of antibiotics in raising animals for food, in an effort to cut the widespread overuse that has been blamed as a significant factor in increasing medicinal resistance among humans.
The chief medical officer for England, Dame Sally Davies, has repeatedly said that the rapidly increasing resistance to antibiotics and the rise of resistant “superbugs” is one of the greatest threats to human health, which could make even routine operations life-threatening in future.
Continue reading...The call of the foghorn mournful | Brief letters
I recently completed my tax return for 2016-17 and as I owe less than £3,000 HMRC is happy to let me start paying the bill on my tax code from April 2018. This generosity from the government for those of us fortunate enough to have taxable income seems in stark contrast to those being moved to universal credit (Rent arrears spiral in universal credit pilot, 24 October), where it is deemed better that vulnerable people live without any money for a few weeks because the money tree can’t afford it.
John Beer
Farnham, Surrey
• Pilgrim Tucker’s article (25 October) points out that, under universal credit, workers on low incomes will be forced to look for extra hours. Not only that, but if an unemployed person applies, their partner who has a part-time job which they love will also be forced to look for full-time work. This applies even if they have a young child. How cruel can this government get?
Diane Smethurst
Chester
Nestlé, Mars and Hershey 'breaking promises over palm oil use'
This year’s Halloween confectionery will contain palm oil grown on land that should lawfully be habitat to orangutans, rhinos and clouded leopards, despite commitment to clean up supply chains
Nestlé, Mars and Hershey have been accused of breaking pledges to stop using “conflict palm oil” from deforested Indonesian jungles, just days before the annual Halloween confectionery frenzy.
The Rainforest Action Network (RAN) says consumers have been “deceived” by promises from the brands to clean up their supply chains which were subsequently delayed, revised or watered down.
Continue reading...Ryan Zinke: cowboy in Trump's cabinet taking aim at America's public lands
Interior secretary Zinke calls himself a ‘Teddy Roosevelt guy’ – but he’s quietly dismantling environmental protections and yielding to oil industry interests
He recently posed for a GQ magazine photo shoot with a fly fishing rod in front of snow-capped Montana peaks.
He rode a horse – named Tonto – down the National Mall to his first day of work at the Interior Department.
Continue reading...Sheffield councillor cleared of breaching tree-felling order
Green party councillor Alison Teal was accused of entering ‘safety zone’ erected around trees due to be felled
A Green party councillor has been found not guilty of breaching a court order while trying to stop trees being felled in Sheffield.
Alison Teal, the councillor for Nether Edge and Sharrow, could have faced up to two years in jail for allegedly ignoring an injunction brought by Sheffield city council over its controversial programme that has resulted in about 5,500 mature trees chopped down.
Continue reading...The week in wildlife - in pictures
Vaquita, Fynbos flowers and the world’s only alpine parrot are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world
Continue reading...Artificial intelligence smart enough to fool Captcha security check
Russia holds nuclear-capable missile tests
Subsidy plan for coal and nuclear plants 'will cost US taxpayers $10.6bn a year'
Non-partisan analysis reveals the cost of energy secretary Rick Perry’s proposal to give handouts to some of the country’s oldest and dirtiest power plants
A Trump administration plan to subsidize coal and nuclear energy would cost US taxpayers about $10.6bn a year and prop up some of the oldest and dirtiest power plants in the country, a new analysis has found.
The Department of Energy has proposed that coal and nuclear plants be compensated not only for the electricity they produce but also for the reliability they provide to the grid. The new rule would provide payments to facilities that store fuel on-site for 90 days or more because they are “indispensable for our economic and national security”.
Continue reading...Call to conserve 'crucial' rare Wales spider species
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